Plant Varieties (Proprietary Rights) (Amendment) Act, 1998

Amendment of section 5 of Principal Act.

6.Section 5 of the Principal Act is hereby amended in subsection (1) by—

(a) the insertion in paragraph (a) after “or discovered” of “and developed”,

(b) the insertion in paragraph (a) after “duly assigned” of “or a person who bred or discovered and developed it in the course of his or her employment,”,

(c) the deletion in paragraph (c) of “an Irish citizen or” and “either the State or”,

(d) the substitution in paragraph (c) of “member of the Union” for “party to the Convention”,

(e) the insertion in paragraph (c) after “ section 2 of this Act applies” of “and a member of the Union means a state party to the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants of 1961, 1972 or 1978 or a Contracting Party”, and

(f) the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (3):

“(4) Where an application for a grant of plant breeders’ rights is made by a person who bred or discovered and developed a variety in the course of his or her employment, the Controller, in determining such application, shall have regard to—

(a) an agreement, if any, between that person and the employer concerning the entitlement to apply for a grant of plant breeders’ rights, and

(b) any statutory provisions concerning the relationship between employer and employee for the time being in force in—

(i) the country or territory in which such employee is wholly or mainly employed, or

(ii) where the identity of such country or territory cannot be determined, the country or territory in which the business of such employer is situate.”.